Look at de state of Cork, like!

Exactly as I suspected if its good enough for Limerick its good enough for cork.Enter R Mc D hopefully!Here comes the pain,lets hope the master referee sorts this out as I have said before this is a very important point in corks historic core.

Michael O’Donoghue of Rockfell Investments

You may remember a few months ago that I post Rockfell Investments (a development SPV set up by Michael O’Donoghue of the O’Donoghue/Ring Hotel Group and Munster Joinery) based at Lacka Cross intended to start work on their Cornmarket Street development for April. The development which received the greenlight in October 2004 was subject to substantial revisions by architect Niall Coffey (w/ Frank Ennis & Associates) and in the end was approved with 65 apartments, 66 basement parking spaces and over 120,000sq ft of retail over 9 units at the former Musgrave (Guy & Co.) building, Noddy’s Toystore and former Paul Street church – however things have been stalled ever since the developer was approached by O’Callaghan Properties (OCP) MD Owen O’Callaghan. It would seem, OCP are very protective of their retail provision dominance in the Cork city area. Besides OCP, the only real threat to this crown is from the Shipton Group (Clayton Love Jnr’s vehicle) and to a lesser extent, O’Flynn Construction. Talks were initiated about a possible joint venture in the Cornmarket Street development – despite OCP having its own ambitions set on the 150m euro retail/residential building planned for a 0.6acre block at Academy Street (an application is still set for this summer). There remains a projected demand of some 400,000sq ft of city centre retail space in Cork – Academy Street would bring around 200,000sq ft of that space between 30/40 units across its lower levels. The negotiation stage is still unclear, but it looks as though OCP would be anxious for the Rockfell development to link across into its aging Paul Street S.C. – which would in turn be revamped to the standards provided by the Cornmarket Street project. Tesco would remain anchor tenant for Paul Street. The link-up would also provide Rockfell’s project with direct access to the public multi-storey car-park as it has no such facilities of its own (with the 66 basement spaces designated for resident use only). As for a further link-up to Academy Street nearby, I find it unlikely and have not heard of anything as of yet. Academy Street will primarily avail of pedestrian-based trade given its accessibility and access onto Patrick’s Street – remember, the street sees approx. half-a-million pedestrian movements per week, that’s a lot of trade – it is also a reason OCP were so anxious to have a frontage onto the street by acquiring the Taboo bar and current The Jean Scene building (notably, The Jean Scene have applied for a unit at the Academy Street facility along with Gasoline – who will seek to transfer their business to the centre from Merchants Quay S.C.). Rumours persist that OCP have since managed to strike a deal with the Reidy family regarding their Le Cheateau bar – but the deal entails that the licensed premises will still remain on completion of the development.

A clear position will be made known soon regarding Cornmarket Street – whether Mr. O’Donoghue accepts the offer with OCP or not, it’s clear that the offer could be an attractive one to him. Nothing has been set in stone yet – but its nice to know what’s going on in the background. I really like the Rockfell project. Nonetheless, a target has been set for clearance and excavation works to commence for this summer, with some tenancy agreements having already been accorded for the development – including a large unit for furniture retailler Habitat. Other rumours include a unit for Dixons and Boots (who are expected will transfer from Patrick’s Street to avail of a larger city centre unit with greater presence – no confirmation has yet been solidified).

I have to say, I admire Mr. O’Donoghue’s motto toward business, it’s quoted as being “The best is only barely good enough for me!”

😎 I hope to reveal the architects behind Academy Street soon – its all pending – but if anyone is wise to this, some members of the Academy Street design team were present on invitation by Mr. O’Callaghan to the opening of Mahon Point S.C.

🙂 Lidl have acquired a site along the Ballyhooly Road in Ballyvolane for which they intend to develop a discount food store (and possibly additional retail units) – no application has been made yet, so the specifics are not yet clear. It seems Dunnes Stores is still not safe even despite outbidding the Germal retaillers for a 1.9 acre site near its Ballyvolane S.C.

😎 O’Flynn Construction have applied to make a number of finishing alterations to their Ballincollig Town Centre shopping centre facility and adjoining multi-storey car-park. Were once, the northern elevation of the S.C. and part of the Western elevation of the car-park were set to be finished with timber cladding, this will now be omitted in favour of a less maintenance heavy finish of metal sheet cladding. Dunnes Stores will anchor 2 of the main anchor units (grocery and clothing), providing a combined area of approx. 60,000sq ft, with the 3rd anchor tenant set to be announced shortly, with a 30,000sq ft unit. Easons are already taking up a units 10 & 11 with a newsagents and cafe. Vero Moda are also supposedly looking at a unit but I haven’t heard anything of this other than 3rd party info. The S.C. is scheduled for opening in October 2005.

Ballincollig Town Centre S.C.

I was curious as to what they had planned to do with the tree in the middle of the roundabout.

@lexington wrote:

Well there seems to be a lot of talk about roundabouts in another thread on this forum – so I said I may as well update this thread w.r.t. the progress being made on the Kinsale Road Roundabout Flyover. This long overdue and it’s highly inflated budget (upwards of 42m euro) are now scheduled to get a move on this June, with Ascon as contractors. This is following a further delay which without, would have seen the project rolling 2 months ago.

Here’s a little bird’s eye view of the flyover – what it will look like when complete. Arup are the consultants for the project.

Tom McCarthy’s development vehicle, McCarthy Developments – who are continuing work on their Hartys Quay and Jacobs Island developments (both awaiting planning decisions for extensions on each) and are also in planning for a superb 100,000sq ft, 8-storey technology and business centre along Centre Park Road – will again shortly be seeking a revised proposal for their Curraheen residential development (which was refused planning on appeal due to what was stated as being a ‘premature application’ – considering the Ballincollig By-pass had not been completed at the time). Originally the development sought to accommodate up to 500 students across a series of blocks on what were once the football grounds of Cork City FC.

McCarthy Developments will be seeking a revised application in the coming months – with a number of alterations made. The original plan was granted by Cork County Council – and it is hoped that the renewed application will also meet approval. It is suspected that the fresh proposal will have a reduced student element, if at all. The site is also in very close proximity to Jermiah Lynch’s site which recently attained planning, following appeal, for 123 residential units – as designed by Murray O’Laoire: that site is now up for sale through Irish & European with a guide price of approx. 10m euros. Design on the McCarthy Developments application will again be by Project Architects. The adjacent sports pitches, as visible in the image below, have been assessed by UCC and CIT for a joint student campus facility. Similar to the McCarthy Developments project, a link would be provided to CIT.

Many of you have asked how come no images of Victoria Mills, developed by Paul Montgomery & Edmund Kenneally, designed by Derek Tynan & Associates, constructed by Bowen Construction, have been posted on this thread considering all the talk about it. Although I have provided links, here’s an image, finally! Hmmm. Phase 2 begins late May.

Lexington re: Bandon Rd flyover

might be some disruption to this given the current uproar about Gama?

ilovecork2 and your “compulsory” airbridges

it is not “compulsory” for airlines to serve Cork either.

You can make it as compulsory as you like in fact but that won’t make it possible to attach an airbridge to an ATR42.

That McCarthy Development’s Student Accomodation at Bishopstown looks like some terrible planning. It’s analagous to the inspired decision to build student accomodation at the train station. The train station!!!! thats pretty much as far as you can be away from UCC/CIT and still be in Cork CIty.
Plus, building over Sports facilities is pretty dodgy territory.
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Does anyone know what Leaders on North Main Street are up to? They seem to be fitting out that long vacant shop close to their larger store. All property owned by the company on the street is in need of a facelift. Lets hope thats what they are up to.
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There was an interesting article on the Evening Echo on Saturday talking about a lifting bridge at Water Street area. Apparently CCC are in the very early stages of assessing its viability. They had an interesting image of what it might look like. Not sure of the source of the image. Any details?
On a related topic, Werdna’s Water street project will be given the thumbs up/down next Monday.
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I have heard on the grapevine that Frinailla’s development on Watercourse road (Ladys Well), which was granted permission after a long, drawn out planning process by CCC, will almost definately be appealled to ABP. This will further lengthen the already elongated process.
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Next Wednesday (20th) is the closing date for entries to the Kyrls Quay Architectural Design Competition run by CCC/CORK2005/RIAI.
I’ve been lucky enough to view a number of the entries and there is some excellent work there. I think, most importantly, that the general public, will be more than happy with the designs and most will also please the architecture critics 🙂
Expect the results to be made available sometime in late May.

would sum1 ever shut mary leland up – re: her article on cork2005 in todays IT. and every other article dat woman has ever wrote. what a nag.

i really don’t understand people’s reactions to this building – is it because it is contemporary, striking, slightly different to nearby buildings – some comments have been a bit hysterical in my opinion – and when we have far worse new buildings being built everywhere in the city no-one seems to care for eg does anyone know the Bridgeholm (or something like that) apartment scheme being built above Commons Road – now thats bad – cheap looking early 1990’s tax incentive effect to the utmost.